


Bristol: English City

by duskodair



Series: Off the beaten track [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Bristol, Brunel, Chatterton, Gen, Mentions of Suicide, Pirate England, austen - Freeform, blackbeard - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 20:02:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13302180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duskodair/pseuds/duskodair
Summary: Bristol, with its dark and miserable history is just as much a part of England as his pleasant ones.A non-chronological summary of Bristol’s history as an English city with England along for the ride.





	Bristol: English City

Bristol was a city of the future, always thriving on new industries. Brunel had adored it, building project after project in the area, most notably the Clifton Suspension Bridge.

The bridge ran high over the gorge below and the river that ran through it. People jumped. England had jumped from it. Just to remember what death was like.

Bristol’s streets twisted and turned and revealed works by Banksy, informing on corrupt society through art. England saw them and agreed. And did nothing. In this modern age, he was a symbol. Just a symbol, like his queen.

Bristol had two universities, England looked to them and prayed for the children of his land who came to learn. He prayed for the children from other lands who sought knowledge in his schools. Maybe they could bring change.

Within the city, high walls rose to form dark alleys, pungent with the smell of waste. The smell of a city. The ancient neighboured the modern in a mishmash of buildings, twisted streets with cobbles in places.

Bristol was a city that endured. The German Luftwaffe had bombed night after night, destroying homes and churches. England had seen it. Seen it and moved on. He did as ordered, ‘keep calm and carry on’. It was all he could do.

Gone were the dock lands, the teeming wharfs. Bristol had been a city of death, a point on a triangle that spanned an ocean. From Bristol sailed the wares sold for human lives. To Bristol came cotton and sugar and wealth. So much wealth.

England had adored his Bristol for its ports, uncaring of the lives he sold and people he killed. England had been high on riches.

Then came reality and England hated it. He hated the city’s legacy, a point on an awful triangle.

Blackbeard sailed from Bristol. His accent changed Bristol from slaver to pirate and England changed with it. He hunted Spain’s ships from Bristol, seeking the moral high ground.

The gold he kept, with it furnishing an empire on which the sun never set. Stolen wares from ancient societies sailed into Bristol, noses knocked from Egyptians, paint chipped from Greeks.

Out of Bristol rolled the railway, steam trains dirtying the sky, as Bristol rose. England’s city for the future.

A boy, Chatterton, was discovered a fraud in Bristol. He died alone, aged seventeen, then romanticised, painted, beautified. His death revolutionised poetry. Bristol became a sight of rare literary pilgrimage. England came to see, and sigh for a boy who sorrow and despair he had felt. He had done nothing.

Bristol grew and grew, a city of death. Calamities coming like passing storms. England watched it. It wasn’t his most noticeable city, or his favourite. It was simple there. Bristol, rising and falling. A motorbike flew over it in the opening chapter of Harry Potter, England noted. Bristol was just a waypoint on a map.

It lacked the Georgian elegance of its neighbour, Bath, with its Roman baths and Austen heritage. Bath had a layered weir on the river Avon, much better than the flat water below the suspension bridge.

It lacked the royal history of Gloucester to the north, with a king in the Cathedral and civil war history. Gloucester held prestige in its inland docks, warehouse after warehouse surrounded them as the tall ships came and went.

Bristol could merely gaze over to Wales, England’s quiet elder brother. The Bristol Channel split their shores, only joining further north. The brothers built bridges to one another and Bristol became merely a junction on the motorway to Wales. A city to mention, but never explore.

Bristol just was. And that was that.

**Author's Note:**

> I did no research for this. My facts are probably wrong. The only reason I know anything about Bristol is because I live by nearby Gloucester, and nobody ever knows where it is, so Bristol is a waypoint.  
> Gloucester and Bristol and Bath needed some representation because they have some pretty cool history and customs (Gloucester cheese rolling and double Gloucester cheese and Gloucester cathedral in Harry Potter).  
> I might make a series of these with different ‘unknown’ cities and places.


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